


Strength

by der_tanzer



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:37:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse made lunch for Aunt Jenny every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



> For SegaBarrett, by request. Well, she asked for something with Aunt Jenny. I made the call. Hope it was the right one.:)

At a quarter past eleven in the morning on a weekday, Jesse Pinkman was supposed to be in gym class. He didn’t know if Aunt Jenny knew that, her sense of time and place hadn’t been so great since he upped her Oxy, so he never brought it up. He cut out at eleven and took the bus over to Jenny’s, where he found her sitting in the recliner just as he’d left her four hours ago. She was still in her nightgown and robe, a bald, skeletal figure clothed in soft pink silk and lace.

Two conflicting images rushed to mind, freezing him for a few seconds with his hand on the doorknob and a welcoming smile that died before it reached his eyes. One was of the woman she’d been a few years ago, baking cookies and gardening, inviting him to help and never deriding his efforts. Admiring his artwork, buying him his first set of professional pencils, telling him he could be just as special as he wanted to be. And that he would always be special to her.

The other was of the Aunt Jenny of the last two years, inexorably sinking and shrinking, vomiting into basins that he held in one hand, the other hand holding back her thinning hair. The woman who wept in his arms from the pain of radiation, and sometimes soiled herself without knowing it. Jesse used to sedate her with pain medication before bathing her, dressing her in a fresh nightgown, and returning her to bed. Now he didn’t bother. She no longer seemed to care.

Jenny opened her eyes, jolting Jesse out of his reverie and into motion. His smile spread instantly, reaching his eyes in sincere pleasure as he closed the door. He crossed the entryway in long, unhurried strides and crouched beside her chair in the living room.

“Hey, Aunt Jenny. How’re you doing?”

“Fine, Jesse. Just fine,” she whispered, her voice thin and papery. “I must’ve been asleep, though. It seems like you just left a minute ago.”

“You’re just a little tired, Jenny. Let me fix you something to eat. You need to use the bathroom?”

“I guess I better,” she sighed. “Ever since I started that damn chemo it seems like I have to go all the time.”

Jesse knew that wasn’t exactly how it happened. As the cancer spread the doctors had irradiated more and more of her body, eventually damaging the nerves that controlled her bowels and bladder. Jesse had tried to explain it to her once, but his own difficulty with words combined with her fearful, drug-addled state left them both frustrated and confused. 

Since then he had learned that the exact cause of her crawling humiliation and impending death didn’t matter at all compared to the actual fact of those things. An ant doesn’t have to understand the molecular composition of a pesticide to know that it is dying, and so it is with people when the end is near enough to feel. Jenny barely cared that she sometimes shit herself. She didn’t in the least care why, and it wasn’t Jesse’s place to bore her with poorly articulated details.

Jesse slid his arms around her waist and helped her to her feet. She didn’t walk very well these days, but she always insisted on trying. That was something else he didn’t argue about. He loved her and she was dying. She could have whatever she wanted.

He held her with his left arm around her back, the small bird-claw fingers of her left hand gripping his wrist, her other hand wrapped as well as possible around the broad palm of his right. He held her bony hand gently but firmly, as if leading her in a dance. But it was his left arm that kept her on her feet, wrapped almost all the way around her frail body. She walked six steps in agonizing slowness, then asked him for help as if she’d been doing it on her own. It was another of their mutual fictions, which she might by now believe to be fact.

“Give me a hand, Jesse,” she gasped softly, her breath whistling in her throat. “I’m feeling so weak all of a sudden.”

“It’s all right, Jenny,” he said, lifting her in his arms. She’d weighed eighty-six pounds at her last doctor appointment and to Jesse it felt like nothing. “That’s what I’m here for.” He carried her into the bathroom and set her on her feet where she could hold a safety rail. She said nothing as he pulled up her robe and dress, then pulled down the underwear that was nothing but a slightly dignified diaper.

“You still have to go, Jenny?” he asked, encouraging her with his hands to raise her feet and step out.

“That’s what we came in for, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” He lifted the lid on the trashcan and dropped the diaper in. Still holding her clothes out of the way with one hand, he put his other arm around her and backed her slowly toward the toilet, her fingers digging into his wrist. She gasped, startled by the cold when her legs touched the porcelain, but trusted him when he eased her down.

“Want me to stay?” he asked, discomfited for the first time by the restless way she picked at the nightgown puddled between her knees.

“I’ll be all right,” she said. “I’m feeling stronger now.”

“That’s good. I’ll be right outside, okay?”

Jenny nodded and he went out, leaving the door open. He stood beside it, leaning against the wall, listening and wishing he had a cigarette. He loved her but it was so hard. She loved him and that made it harder. Her love was unconditional, solid and sure, something they understood without having to talk about it. Something no one else believed in, but that Jesse didn’t bother to defend because defending it to such people was pointless. Worse than pointless, even. It was absurd.

Jesse thought about his mother, who had never liked her sister all that much and disliked her even more because Jenny liked Jesse more than she herself did. She resented the bond they shared that caused Jesse to do so much for his aunt, to work hard for her, to try to please her, in a way he never had his own parents. He knew what she thought, that he did it because Jenny had money and was either supporting his growing drug habit or promising him an inheritance, or maybe both. But that wasn’t fair. 

His parents thought he was taking advantage, but they never checked his work. They didn’t know that Jenny had never had a diaper rash or pressure sores, or that she was as well fed as anyone in her condition could be. His dad talked a lot about worrying over his sister-in-law, but he never drove her to the doctor to see how she was really doing, or voiced any concerns to authorities who might ask awkward questions. Incredible as it seemed, their only interest in the dying woman was as an accusation against their son. Jesse didn’t hold a lot of grudges toward his parents but the crime of neglecting Aunt Jenny was one he’d never forgive.

“Jesse, honey?” she called faintly. “I’m making a big ol’ mess in here.”

“It’s okay, I’m right here,” he said, pushing off the wall and rolling around the corner on his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry, Jesse. You’re such a good boy…” She held one shit-smeared hand out to him, tears trembling on her eyelashes at the sight of her reality.

“No I’m not,” he said, laughing. He wet a washcloth, soaped it liberally and washed her hand. Then he took off her robe and nightgown, dropped them into the hamper, and crouched down before her. Jenny leaned forward and rested against his chest while he cleaned her off with baby wipes.

“You’re always here for me,” she said. “You’re a _good_ boy, no matter what that mother of yours thinks.”

“Thanks, Jenny. Be sure to tell her that for me, okay?”

She smiled as Jesse sat her upright and then rose, pivoting neatly toward the dresser behind him. He did her laundry on the weekends and kept things well divided between upstairs and down, to spare himself trouble and Jenny embarrassment. The second drawer was full of silky nightgowns, light pastels that she said always made her feel like a flower. He chose lilac this time and patiently helped her into it before getting a pull-up diaper from the top drawer. Jenny let him put it on her without complaint, leading him to wonder again if she was fully aware of what was happening. They used to argue about this and for a while she’d been unhappy, if resigned. Now she seemed wholly indifferent.

“May I have some lilac water?” she asked as he stood her on her feet.

“In a minute. It’s upstairs.” 

Jenny held him with her little stick arms around his neck while he pulled up her diaper and arranged her nightgown. Then he scooped her up again, eighty-some pounds that felt like maybe twenty-five, even to a teenager going scrawny with meth.

“Do you know what you want for lunch?” he asked as he carried her up the stairs.

“Hmm,” she murmured against his throat. “Did you ever see Gone With the Wind, Jesse?”

“No, Aunt Jenny, I must’ve missed that one.”

“It’s foolish, I know, but you make me feel like Scarlett O’Hara, being swept off her feet by the one man who truly loves her.”

“Uh-huh. So what do you think Scarlett O’Whatsit would want for lunch? Chicken soup or tomato?”

“Oh, definitely chicken. Scarlett was a carnivore, Jesse. Like you and me.”

“Huh,” he said, the only thing he could think of. He kept telling himself it was the drugs or the cancer itself, or maybe even age. She was fifteen years older than Jesse’s mother, her youngest sister, and he guessed a person could be senile at sixty-eight. To him everyone over thirty-five was hopelessly ancient, so anything was possible.

Because he hadn’t seen Gone With the Wind, he didn’t understand why Jenny laughed softly to herself as he strode down the hall and pushed her bedroom door open with his foot. Maybe sick old women giggled at random, he thought. But she stopped laughing when he laid her in the bed. Her body stiffened spasmodically and she whimpered, biting her lips to hold it back.

“What is it, Jenny? Where does it hurt?” he asked gently, touching her cheek with his fingertips.

“My…my back. Jesse, I can’t breathe.” 

“Yes you can,” he murmured, sitting down on the bed. He lifted her upper body and held her to his chest, her chin resting on his shoulder. She started to cough, a horrible, wrenching paroxysm that shook them both to the soul. She whimpered and choked, fighting for breath as he rubbed her back and the blood ran down her chin.

“It’s okay, Jenny,” he whispered, keeping his voice low and easy. “It’s okay, just relax and breathe.”

After a few minutes, she found she could.

“There you go,” Jesse said with a forced smile. “Let me fix your pillows and you’ll be fine.” He reached behind her and plumped them up, stacking them so she would be sitting more than lying down. Only then did Jenny let go, allowing him release her. Jesse never let go until she was ready.

Jesse reached for a tissue with his right hand as he drew back, running his left hand tenderly across her mouth, wiping away the blood. Her eyes were on his hands as they came together, working the tissue between his fingers, but she seemed completely unaware. She might have been about to comment on the state of his nails, as she so often did when he was a child, for all the real interest she showed. 

He felt the blood on his shoulder, too. Warm as it first soaked into his shirt and then turning cold. He got a clean tissue, wiped her mouth again, and threw them both away. She watched with calm disinterest as he pulled off his shirt and got up to drop it in the hamper.

“You’re getting so thin, Jesse,” she remarked.

“So are you, Jenny,” he reminded her, teasing so she smiled. “Want something to drink with your soup? I got some ginger ale.”

“I’d like that,” she said and closed her eyes.

Jesse straightened her nightgown and covered her neatly, making sure she would be warm. Jenny gave no sign of noticing. He left the door open and went downstairs to the kitchen to open a can of soup. He buttered a piece of bread and put it in the oven to toast while the soup heated. There was a fancy four-slot toaster on the counter, but Jenny never used it. She liked oven toast and that was what she’d get.

***

Jesse carried a silver tray upstairs and set it on the table beside her bed. On the tray were a bowl of soup, a plate with a single slice of toast, a glass of ginger ale with a straw in it, and a pink carnation in a slender vase. The carnations were delivered twice a week and kept in a vase in the living room. Whenever he took her a tray, he chose the best one for the crystal vase.

“I’ve got your lunch, Jenny,” he whispered, lightly touching her shoulder. She stirred awake, groggy and confused, and Jesse kept his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Good morning, Jesse,” she mumbled. “Is it eleven already?”

“Closer to noon. Here, I’ve got your chicken soup. Just like your carnivore friend, Scarlett O’Something.”

“Oh,” she said with a vague smile and he knew she didn’t remember a thing.

Jesse sat down on the bed and put the tray on his lap. Carefully, he began spooning the soup into her mouth, catching stray noodles and wiping up dribbles of broth with a napkin. Jenny ate obediently, accepting bits of toast and sips of ginger ale when he offered but asking for nothing. When she’d eaten half the soup and all but the crusts of the bread, she refused to take any more. Jesse put the tray aside and asked what else she wanted.

“I’m tired, Jesse. I’m so, so tired.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Is it time for my pills? My back hurts, Jesse. It—it hurts.”

“Yeah, I got your pills right here. It’s okay, Jenny.” He had her meds sorted into a box, little piles of pills to take four times a day, a week at a time. Jesse did the sorting himself, every Saturday afternoon while the laundry was running. He couldn’t pronounce the names of many of her drugs and he didn’t know exactly what all of them did—he didn’t need to know those things to be able to dispense them at the right time. But he did know some of them. Some were drugs he used himself, and others he’d seen traded on the street. He never sold Jenny’s, though his mother had accused him of if plenty of times, but he’d bought her extras more than once. It was his opinion, and Jenny agreed, that the doctors were being entirely too stingy considering her level of pain.

He poured the noon meds into his hand and held it up to Jenny’s mouth. She lipped them carefully, like a well-mannered pony accepting a treat, and he felt her tongue graze his palm. Suddenly he remembered his fifth birthday, a party at a public park, a little boy who pushed him down and scraped his knee. His mother had been busy talking to a neighbor, a business associate who had a daughter in his class, and he’d known better than to interrupt her. It was Aunt Jenny who picked him up and put him on a picnic table to examine the insignificant wound. She’d cleaned it with a tissue and kissed it to make it better, a childish ruse that only worked when Jenny did it. How his mother had hated that.

Jesse offered her the glass again and she took a drink to swallow the pills.

“It hurts so much,” she whispered and raised her hands as another fit of coughing overtook her. This time she saw the blood and knew exactly what it was. Jesse grabbed a handful of tissues and gave them to her, biting his tongue as she coughed and spit. When it was over he took the tissues away.

“Jesse, I—it _hurts_. Can you…understand? It hurts _so_ much.”

“I know, Jenny,” he murmured. “What do you want me to do?”

“Make it stop,” she said simply. “Jesse, I love you. You’re…you’re such a good boy.”

“I love you too, Jenny.” He was still for a moment, looking into her eyes and knowing she was looking back into his. Whatever else had happened this morning, she was right here with him now. 

“Jesse, is it time for my pills?”

Her eyes stayed on him, alert and full of knowledge, begging him to go along with the charade. Jesse smiled as gooseflesh broke out over his bare chest and back. He opened the box and picked through it, selecting just the pain meds, the anti-anxiety meds, the tranquilizers, from every section. She took them from his palm again, nuzzling it briefly with her cheek before accepting a drink.

“There you go, Jenny. You’ll feel better soon.” He helped her get comfortable and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. As she closed her eyes, Jesse suddenly remembered her last request. He got up and scrambled swiftly through the bottles and boxes on her dresser, finally coming up with the lilac water. She wanted to be a flower, and so she would be. 

Jesse sat down again and poured a little into the palm of his hand, dipped his fingers into it, and touched them lightly to her throat, her collarbones, the insides of her wrists. Then he took her left hand in both of his, stroking tenderly as the scent of lilac filled the room. She squeezed his hand weakly but with all of her strength. Jesse sat there and held it until that strength ran out.


End file.
